Drake's weakness

Every astronomer and science nerd has wondered: are we alone in the universe? One such nerd (or was he an astronomer?), Dr. Frank Drake, came up with the Drake Equation, which tries to estimate the number of detectable civilizations there are in the galaxy. Let's take a brief look at the equation:

1. The rate of star formation in our galaxy

2. The fraction of those stars with planets

3. The number of life-friendly planets around those stars

4. The fraction of life-friendly planets that develop life

5. The fraction of life-full planets that develop intelligence

6. The fraction of civilizations that broadcast detectably into space

7. The length of time such detectable civilizations exist

We are supposed to take the product of these seven terms, and that will tell us the number of detectable civilizations at any given time in our galaxy. But maybe you've noticed a certain earthling-centric bias built into this equation? It assumes that the only place life can exist is on a planet, near a star. Because that's exactly how we are. Now, let me assert that life could hypothetically take on many different forms. Instead of water-based life, we could have ammonia-based life. Instead of having cells, cell-less viruses might be considered alive. There was even a meme - I mean, fad - in the '80s in favor of Clay Theory, which hypothesized that a certain type of clay-based life might be possible, where drying stream-beds crystallize, and those crystals that work the best and kick up the most dust will infect the most other stream-beds. Crystals are just a pattern in the clay, but our own DNA and cells are just patterns of the same few elements. Consider the latest type of marketing, "viral videos". A company will make a funny/cool video promoting their product, then wait for college kids to stumble onto it and send it to each other like wild fire. The company pays almost nothing, but gets lots of exposure. The idea of the video can be said to be alive, living as a pattern on our computers and in our brains. And we infect each other just like the flu.

What I'm trying to get at is that other life can be startlingly different from us. We shouldn't expect that all life in the universe is on a little planet about this big, revolving about that far from a star about this size. What about bigger planets? Moons? Dust rings around stars? Inside stars themselves? Or even in cold, distant space? One of these in particular - life inside stars - seems to me to be the most plausible. The mass of all the planets in the universe is much much smaller than the mass of all the stars, and that mass is a lot hotter. We know that matter-based life requires at least some kind of energy or entropy, so in general, hotter is better.

But then again, I'm no astrobiologist.